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Laika was one of those dogs who did not know the meaning of heel. Or stay. Or come or shake or even sit. Sure, she could give the appearance of understanding them, but only when she wanted to and that was generally not when on the way to the dog park. The rat terrier was all the way at her end of the leash, swiftly pulling her frazzled owner towards the fenced run while Iouri worried she was about to strangle herself.

"Laika! Chill out!" he hollered at the dog, who paid him no heed. He walked faster, but all this did was make Laika walk faster until she arrived at the gate and pawed at it, whining all the while. When Iouri finally caught up to unlatch it, she sat still for precisely how long it took him to unclasp her leash before taking off like a bottle rocket across the yard.

Iouri followed, wary that she wasn't about to pick a fight with a rottweiler (not yet, she hadn't) and shut the gate. Across the yard, Laika was bounding about randomly, seemingly ecstatic to just be outside in the fresh air with all the smells.

"You'd think I never took her out, the way she behaves," he called to the woman standing a few feet away. How embarrassing, to have a dog that behaved like an escaped prisoner.

Laika was too fast to be caught by a lumbering brute like Harley, and she seemed to advertise the fact, reaching the back fence and tearing off down the side of the yard.

Iouri was not particularly worried. He had been coming to this dog park long enough to know that the animals there were seldom agressive, and for anything to hurt Laika it would have to catch her first. That was challenging enough in and of itself - he knew from experience.

"They'll be fine," he laughed, noticing the young woman's expression. "Laika is quite sturdy as dogs go. And, ah..."

He watched as the terrier looped around to run behind the mastiff and yap at it. "Not particularly fearful. Or sane, for that matter." Smiling warmly, he extended a hand towards the mastiff's owner. "Iouri Spekter. And you are...?"

"Trust me," Iouri assured her, "I'm not worried about Laika." He wasn't even watching the dogs anymore, so certain was he of their safety. It wasn't that he didn't care about the dog's safety so much as they had reached an understanding that if Laika wanted to pick fights with animals eight times her size that was her problem, and she knew that since he was not going to rescue her, she was better off not doing it.

"It is," he nodded, smiling. It was always nice to meet someone with an ear for accents, rather than being mistaken for, say, Czech for the nth time. "I am from St. Petersburg originally, although it was called Leningrad when I lived there."

He was showing his age. Iouri chuckled, feeling momentarily old at 32. "Once upon a time in a mystical place called the Soviet Union, yes? Snow. Ice. Fur hats. Communism! No, really, I've lived in Destiny City since I was nine."

He hoped she liked his joke. You could never be sure when you kidded about Communism.

Iouri could not help but blush at being called exotic. "No, no, no," he stammered. "Exotic is for when you meet someone from Hawaii. Or Africa. Australia, even, I would think is exotic. But not Russia, I mean, unless-"

Well, he supposed some people found it exotic. His college sort-of girlfriend, for starters. Iouri could read her his shopping list, and as long as it was in Russian she would find it as attractive as the finest love poem. "Okay," he conceded, shrugging at the pretty young woman. "I guess some people are in to that kind of thing."

Physics majors with NASA aspirations, for example.

Was Zia into that kind of thing? Iouri felt immediately kind of dirty for even wondering such a thing. Although he couldn't say he wouldn't be intrigued to find out, perhaps over spaghetti and a bottle of cheap white wine in the best-hidden restaurant in Little Italy.

"What is it you do, Miss Zia?" he asked warmly.

Laika came bounding over as well, and although she did not have Harley's ability to move mountains, she was just as insistent. Iouri shrugged at the dog when she looked plaintively at him. "What?" he asked her, voice rising half an octave. "You know I don't have anything for you."

At this proclamation, Laika scooted over to Zia and groveled before her expectantly. Iouri shook his head, shamefaced over his dog who managed to have all the manners of a starving street urchin. "I really do feed her," he asserted lamely.

When his badly-mannered pet had bounded once more to the far reaches of the yard, thrilled with whatever magic Zia kept in his purse, Iouri was finally able to relax. They said chicks loved dogs, but he suspected that women only liked dogs that were well behaved, or else too young to know better. A space case like Laika was not winning him any cool points.

"I'm the operating director at the Destiny City Earth and Space Museum," Iouri said, grateful for a question to distract him from his dog's antics. "In fact! We are having an event this weekend! It's a murder mystery gala to celebrate the re-opening of the planetarium." Using worlds like gala always sounded more swank than what was basically LARP.

Well, he had mentioned murder. Iouri laughed off her suspicion as well, waving an arm awkwardly. "No one is actually going to be murdered," he assured her, perhaps unnecessarily. "It should just be a fun evening! Cocktails and a show, to show people that the museum is still relevant and hip. And to celebrate our new planetarium!"

Iouri was exceedingly proud of the planetarium. He'd supervised installation of the new projectors earlier this week and, he had to confess, sat in for a test run. All that was left to do before opening night was really to shampoo the carpets and take the plastic off the chairs. In fact, he was planning to do that tomorrow.

"The show is a murder mystery game. Like... Have you ever played Clue?" he asked. "There will be a -fake- murder, an investigation... wacky hijinks, yes? The winner gets a year pass to the museum."

He glanced momentarily to the dogs and back to her. "There are still a few tickets."

"You should definitely think about it!" beamed Iouri. While it was true that there was a fundraising aspect to the evening, he was not hosting it only on the basis of trying to get some extra cash for the museum. No, first and foremost Iouri just wanted to get people in the building. Once they saw what kind of remodeling he'd been working on, there was no doubt they'd come back to see the exhibits in full.

"If you decide to come," he said, "You should give me a call and I'll hold a ticket for you." He took a moment to dig a business card out of his wallet. Silver embossing in the shape of the museum's neoclassical main entrance glittered in the sun. He offered it to her.

"The second number listed goes to my office," he said. The first, although he did not say so, went to the giftshop and he had not yet figured out why. Figuring out the circa-1950 phone system in the building was going to be his next project once the planetarium opening was finished with.